Beware of Liars!

Having your floors refurbished can be a significant investment into the improvement and value of your property. In these economic times it's easy to just choose the cheapest floor sanding service in an attempt to save some money on your flooring project. But you could end up paying more if you are not careful and also get a headache in the process.

Vertual Business Address
Please be very suspicious of any company who does not have a local address displayed on the contact page of their website. Most people prefer to engage a tradesman from their neighbourhood for wood floor renovation because if things go wrong, they will not have far to travel to return and put things right. Some devious companies rent a vertual mailing address provided by the likes of Regus, see this LINK for the main one in Leicester City centre. The burning question should be - WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE THEIR ADDRESS?

Choosing the wrong company to renovate your floor can come with costly consequences if they are not properly insured, and it's best to check before signing an agreement with any type of contractor to work on your home. You can be assured that with FloorFixer you will never be held responsible for any loss or injury that may happen on your property because our insurance fully covers us to recondition and refresh your wood floor.

We often get asked questions about specific products and processes that are advertised by the floor cleaning and restoration industry. Although we do not claim to have all the answers, we are more aware of the pitfalls involved with a wooden floor revamp. Over the years, we have come across many problem competitors and our vast experience has allowed us to help many individuals to evaluate advertising claims more objectively before they go ahead with their home improvements, and wood floor update.

Some wood floor sanding and floor renovation companies make the most incredible claims about their products and services by glossing over the facts with exaggerated statements that may sound impressive to the layman. Rather than falling prey to using the hype, restoration and cleaning contractors owe it to their customers to research products and equipment before they buy. Many industry colleagues, and knowledgeable technical experts have helped us in our choice of professional equipment for wood sanding and refurbishment which is the best available on the market today, and all our staff have regularly attended training courses held by the product manufacturers.

Special- Offer
Firstly, be wary of companies that advertise a basic price by the room on the internet such as - Web Site Special - 12ft x 12ft square room for only £300! This is likely to refer only to pine floorboards and is meant to mislead you into thinking it could be any type of wood surface. Perhaps the finish, added VAT, nail-punching, repairs or any gap-filling is not included in the price??? Also, rooms are not necessarily square and the charge should be based on the exact amount of area to be refinished and how many coats are to be applied. Obviously corners, cupboards and difficult to reach alcoves may increase the cost because of the extra time involved.

Dust
How can you tell the difference between the truth and outright lies? The most common claim made by wood floor sanding firms using machines with the latest dust extration is that they offer "DUSTLESS FLOOR SANDING" or "DUST FREE SANDING". We hold our hands up as we are also guilty of doing this because the manufacturers of our machines have managed to bring the risk of dust down to less than 1% and you would find it extremely difficult to notice if there was any dust emerging from the machine without special dust detector equipment. The claim is not absolutely true in most cases, and it is only fair to explain that while technological advances in the field of wood floor sanding have made it possible to drastically decrease the amount of dust left behind, there is always some cleaning up to do after the project is finished and it would be unfair not to warn customers what to expect during a wood floor facelift. You can rest assured though, because Floorfixer's fully trained staff will leave no dust or mess after their final clean-up, and your wood floor will be revived with the minimum of fuss.

Guarantee
Another offer some unscrupulous operators are offering is a Money Back Guarantee and 2 Year Warranty. However, we enquired about this at a course we attended in 2015 held at the FITA training centre held by Pallmann who are the company apparently backing this. Our Staff successfully completed the Pallmann 'Parkettprofi' course in April 2013, and we thought we were entitled to offer this warranty on their products. But when we met the UK boss of Pallmann during the 2015 course and asked him to confirm this, his response was quite guarded. He explained that there were many conditions the customer AND contractor must adhere to before anyone fully qualified. He also told us that they were considering whether to withdraw the offer altogether or not - Not such an attractive offer after all then! Contact us for a FREE no-obligation site survey and quotation now. We won't make any hollow claims or offers, but just offer an honest local wood flooring restoration service.

DIY Parquet
We are often contacted by DIY enthusiasts who have bought some old Wood Parquet tiles without knowing the pitfalls and they have a long hard dirty task ahead of them as a result. The bitumen needs to be removed from each tile, and many suppliers would not tell you beforehand because they do not have any wood floor laying experience. They would not know that the old tiles cannot be put down without first cleaning the bitumen off and there's no easy way to get it off either. Safety protection is a must because its affects can be quite dangerous. There's no doubt that if people knew this smelly stuff needed scraping off they wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

Canvassers
Sadly, like many industries nowadays, wood floor restoration has had its fair share of cowboys and their scams. Be cautious of any company that appears on your doorstep uninvited or contacts you out of the blue over the phone, they may be just out to make a quick profit.

Scams
The two most popular scams doing the rounds at the moment are Bait & Switch, and the Splash & Dash. A company based in the South of the UK was shown using these methods on the BBC TV Watchdog program recently.

Bait - You get a leaflet through your door advertising wood floor refurbishment at ridiculously low prices, i.e. a lounge sanded for only £220 or a whole house for £400. (we have even seen one for only £100 a room) This really was a Bait!

You ring and book them to do the job. They arrive and start sanding the floor straight away. No inspection and survey. No attempt to establish just what species of wood is to be renovated and more importantly - no written confirmation of the price!

Now the Switch - Once they have made a start by bringing in all the machinery, they point out that furniture must be moved (extra charge) heavy traffic lanes are very worn and need a double coat of protection (extra charge) gap filling (extra charge) and so on.

When the work has been done (badly) you are presented with your invoice, including the extras. Your £220 lounge job has now become £500 - and people actually pay them!

The biggest surprise? (Not) it is nearly always the elderly they target.

Splash & Dash - As the name suggests, they are in and out of the house before you know it. It is similar to bait & switch, but this time they just want to sand off as little of the previous top coat as they can, apply the thinnest coat of the cheapest lacquer in as little time as possible and move on to the next job.

Splash & Dash is a wooden floor cleaning industry term for unprofessional, untrained and usually uninsured operators using non-professional equipment and inferior abrasives, which limit the final results and could potentially damage your wood floor in the process. A cheap wood floor restoration could also result in major damage to your furnishings and that would cost you more in the long run. Best to play safe and get a professional in to do the job for you.

Plus VAT
Some wood floor restoration companies are breaching regulations by not including VAT in headline prices online! These businesses think they can get away with using misleading pricing on their home-page by not including VAT which adds another 20% to the cost. Trading standards experts have warned that if VAT cost is not displayed they are potentially breaching consumer protection regulations.

It is not necessary to register a Company for VAT until its turnover hits a certain level. Contractors such as Floorfixer mainly target the public sector, and our non VAT-Registered domestic customers will benefit from having more competitive rates as a consequence. There are also some local organisations such as Village Halls that have used our service which are not able to register for VAT. This is the main reason why we have carried out floor renovation jobs on many village halls throughout Leicestershire who are not registered for VAT, and these valuable assets to the community would also have effectively paid 20% more for a contractor who was VAT registered than one who was not. The Floorfixer Company are not yet registered for VAT and we are more competitive as a consequence. Why not take advantage of our VAT FREE PRICES and give us a call now.

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